I Love You Phillip Morris (2010)

When upstanding Texas cop Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) realizes he’s gay, he changes his entire life and pulls a series of bold con jobs that lands him jail — where he meets his one true love, cellmate Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). When Morris is transferred to another prison, lovesick Russell mounts a series of jailbreaks just to be with his beloved soul mate.

This film has been all over the place for the past couple of years. It’s been getting edited, finding American distributors, and also trying to actually find a release. And although nobody will probably see this movie, you should really get out and try to.

The fact that this film couldn’t find an American distributor because it had “a lot of gay sexual sequences” is totally beyond me. Yeah, there is gay sexual happenings in this movie, but its not to the point of where your basically disgusted at everything that’s going on. In the first part of the film I was a little annoyed by how the gay stereotypes were all over the place, but they soon started to dumb down, and that’s what I liked the most.

This film is not flaming with gay material, it’s more about the sweet love story. This film had me laughing at a lot of parts, and really worked when it came to comedy all over the board, and not just gay sex jokes. Its sweet tone also is kept throughout the whole film, and you can actually feel an emotional connection to all of these characters, even though they may be a little messed up. The pace throughout is generally well-done, without moving too fast, or too slow.

But I honestly liked how the whole story was all true, and the con-man events that happen are even funnier. I think Steven Russell is just such a smart guy, that it was really interesting to see how his story played out into this film. He did many, many crazy things that I would have never have thought about, just to be with his boo, which was funny, and also sweet at the same time. Never have I watched a film and thought that I can do whatever want to do, and be who I want to be, I just got to be good at making stories up, and act really well.

The problem with this film is that the comedy and drama doesn’t quite balance out as well as I would have liked it to. By the end of the film you can kind of see that the film is relying too hard on the drama aspect, which kind of seemed strange, since this whole film itself was kind of goofy. But in the end, I guess it all worked out.

The best thing that this film has going for itself, is the fact that Jim Carrey is on fire (or flaming for that matter)! He is perfect as Steven Russell, and you can really see he is having fun actually playing a “character”. Everybody is so used to seeing Jim Carrey playing the usual Stanley Ipkiss, or Ace Ventura, that it really is a surprise when he can be an actual real-life person. I thought he was doomed, but he came back and showed me after all, why we all love him. It’s not the bravest performance ever, but he does a perfect job at mixing both his dramatic, and comedic aspect of his acting skills. Ewan McGregor is fine as Phillip Morris, as he plays this really gentle, sweet guy that just wants love. It’s great to see these two together on screen, cause they really do make it all work, and their chemistry is actually very solid, as strange as it may seem.

Consensus: Despite its flaws, I Love You Phillip Morris is a funny, fact-based, romantic comedy, that doesn’t exploit the homosexual love, and instead keeps it cute, with Carrey and McGregor doing great jobs in the leads.